The Air Force’s highest ranking black female aviator held off on making history — ceremoniously, anyway — so she could share the occasion with her heroes, military trailblazers in their own right.

Though Brig. Gen. Stayce D. Harris officially donned her first star in April, she synchronized the pin-on ceremony with the 38th Annual Tuskegee Airmen Inc., convention here Aug. 7 as homage to the famed black aviators who trained at Tuskegee Army Air Field, Ala., and helped assure U.S. victory during World War II.

“Two words describe me this evening: blessed and grateful,” said General Harris, the Pentagon-based assistant to the U.S. Africa Command commander.